Comment by burtonator | Hacker News Reader

Comment by burtonator | Hacker News Reader

True story...

I run a web crawling company named Datastreamer where we license data to social media monitoring firms.

We're very white hat... Don't even like to mess around with grey hat areas as we don't want something like the Cambridge Analytica situation coming back to bite us in the ass.

About 1.5 years ago we were contacted by a 3rd party firm which we eventually found out was a cut out for Saudi Arabia.

The deal was at least $350k per year but we never got down to final negotiation. They wanted a LOT of data and also custom support and engineering. It could have easily hit $1M which is a lot of money and would have been a significant percentage of our revenue.

About a month into conversations the questions became a bit disturbing. It was clear to me that they were interested in tracking ethic minorities and trying to track down their physical location.

... you can read between the lines in the RFP.

After finding out what happened to Khashoggi I'm VERY happy about my decision.

They were using this technology to harass him on social media and I'm sure are and were tracking other people.

Sounds similar to what Moxie experienced: https://moxie.org/blog/saudi-surveillance/

This quote is interesting in a historic context (WhatsApp uses Moxie's encryption now.):

> More to the point, if you’re in Saudi Arabia (or really anywhere), it might be prudent to think about avoiding insecure communication tools like WhatsApp and Viber

Does this mean WhatsApp is okay to use now?

No. Facebook bought them.

Depending on your threat model, yes. As far as I understand they cannot read the content of your messages, however:

- by default they'll upload backups of your messages to Google cloud.

- (more importantly for me) I really don't trust Facebook to:

1.) not abuse metadata

2.) not mess up security somehow

3.) stand up against whatever oppressive regimes we might see in the future

In addition I don't want to make the Facebook ecosystem any stronger if I can avoid it.

A nice bonus is that I strengthen the network effect of other ecosystems when I use them by default.

No, in response to things like WhatsApp the Australian government just passed a bill enabling it to force companies to create backdoors to encrypted communications.

Too bad there are so many people like Manafort who are happy to take on that job for a quick buck. Sure people are being hunted down but check out the ostrich jacket!

for every company that refuses, there'll be one that will take it on for the right price...

This is both true and a shitty excuse.

The Mantra of Greed.

and hopefully they'll be inept and it won't work.

and then they'll shop around some more.

it will cost them, more and more, and hopefully it will be deemed not worth it.

Well the depressing part for me is I have seen good friends, extremely smart people who have no sane reason to be working on shady shit, fall down the rabbit hole. And I really haven't found effective ways to do anything about it...

There are two issues at play

1. Not everyone is prepared mentally to turn down big payouts. I have seen this happening up and down the food chain. You only understand how hard this is after you have been in that position. And these day some of the cheques that get waved in your face are insane.

2. People get sucked into a certain kind of "lifestyle" that they get insecure about loosing. And will do whatever it takes to maintain that lifestyle. Once they get "trapped" they are part of this global mega machine of similar folk. Sometimes it feels like watching ants in an anthill. All on autopilot.

The thing is they know they are trapped and convincing them to give it up is not simple.

> Not everyone is prepared mentally to turn down big payouts

Nobody is prepared for racial profiling and genocide either.

I think the OP is explaining, not attempting to justify.

Yep - difference between empathy (explaining) and sympathy (justifying).

The only reason one would share their empathy for these people is to garner sympathy. That is what I took issue with.

Let's try this again,

You said you haven't found effective ways to do anything about it.

How about you stop calling them friends for a start.

Secondly, say something. You're literally the only one who can.

Don't just sit there and try to justify their shitty actions so you can let yourself off the hook as if you tried but couldn't do anything because you know, what about their lifestyles.

It’s not just about the money. Some people can just be really persuasive and in reality most things are not really that black and white.

It's funny how things tend to get less black and white as more money is offered.

It’s funny how things tend to get less black and white if you actually look at pros and cons and listen to arguments. The fact that there actually are pros and cons to most things means they are not black and white.

Show me evil that cannot be justified with enough words, and I'll show you an uncreative salesperson.

Sounds so deep, yet means absolutely nothing. A great piece of marijuana ‘wisdom’.

To elaborate for you, I was saying that with enough words anything can be justified.

Ergo, in response to your previous post, one of two things is true. (1) There is no true evil in the world. Or (2) one should be suspicious of elaborate arguments, because they're often coming from people paid to defend profitable evil.

The counterargument to (2) would be "Well, 'good' has PR too." But I think it's objectively demonstrable that evil pays much better.

Evil is more banal than that. I have no ostrich jacket but I’d create a spying tool for an authoritarian government for the right price. For me it would be about $5-10 million.

Why?

It would completely set up my family and children for life. I’d get to quit my job and spend all day with my kids. If some people I don’t know get fucked over for that, whatever. And that kind of thinking is why the world is such a wretched place. But I can’t say I wouldn’t jump at the opportunity.

If one of your kids was disenfranchised by the government in an illegal way (maybe it was denied healthcare, education, protection of the law or something else that's fundamental) but because an engineer was paid 5-10 million you were powerless to stop it would you be as motivated to build something like that too after knowing what the damage feels like?

No, but that isn't the same hypothetical.

I know, but it would expose a lack of empathy for the victims.

The original author was directly pointing out that his empathy didn't extend that far.

The US sells more weapons than anyone else - obviously a LOT of people make a living selling them.

> It would completely set up my family and children for life.

This isn't as good an excuse as you think it is.

You might want to ask yourself if there is anything you believe in or care about beyond your own genetic code.

One could imagine him thinking about him taking the job as a sacrifice. He will sacrifice his morals and what he cares about for the security of his family and children. He knows that he will sell his soul and be crushed, but he also knows that his family will be okay.

It's one of the reasons suicide bombers blow themselves up too.

But, as in this case he will live and it ignores the lasting psychological damage on those around them - becoming malevolent will affect the people around, and not in a good way.

His soul will not necessarily be crushed. Think about it, most of us (well paid IT peoples) could easily spend 10-20% of our income to save some random people across the world from certain death by hunger/thirst/lack of basic meds or infrastructure. Each of us could be literally saving 10-100 people, but almost none of us do. I know I don't. Does it make me a shitty person? Yes. Does it crush me? No. I don't think about the poor dying people most of the time.

> but he also knows that his family will be okay.

Not really. By succumbing to this temptation he's contributing to creating a worse future for everyone, including his children and their children.

Yes, the commenter we are addressing is a trash bag of a human being and wants us to know because they have anonymity. We don’t need to deep dive further.

I don’t think it’s an excuse. I’m admitting the ways in which I am a bad person in a way I can only do on a web site not associates with my real name.

Relevant twilight zone

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_(The_Twilight...

Depends if your host countries intelligence agency takes a dim view of what you are doing as happened with the Iraqi super gun.

And some countries play harder ball than the CIA and SIS

Why not offer it for them to buy as well?

If you're making this sort of software for one country or organisation then you're effectively a weapons trafficker so you might as well sell to all sides and reap in the profits.

Would you xo it for $4.95 million?

It’s a very slippery slope.

If some people I don’t know get fucked over for that, whatever.

And when your kids lost all respect for you after finding out what a shameless sell-out you are, well...

whatever.

Please be honest and admit that this is solely about yourself; your kids having nothing to do with this except with respect to your own benefit. Even Walter White "did everything for his family."

More importantly, why is having an ostrich jacket relevant? I don't have a pony either.

Very interesting. Do you know who eventually built is for them?

Perhaps I'm taking the moral high ground here, but you should contact the media or human rights organizations, spill the beans to help them investigate. Anonymously if necessary.

Which organizations other than Wikileaks have a history of successfully pursuing this stuff?

The group's behind the Panama Papers, Cum-Ex Scandals, LuxLeaks etc.

I'd see which newspaper had a reaction to the Khashoggi's death and try to directly contact the journalists writing the articles. They're people and they may be quite happy for the ammunition provided. For example:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/17/silicon-valley-hoped-the-k...

Don't let scumbags have their way, if you can tip the scale in the other direction. But again, don't want to take the moral high ground and tell people what to do.

The Guardian is very active in that space.

What exactly has WikiLeaks "pursued"?

Last I checked, they had people contact them and published material they liked.

Not discounting the work they do, but there's a huge difference between them and someone like The Guardian assigning reporters to investigate a story.

None. And it's not like wikileaks made a lasting and positive change anywhere so far. Plus, after "leaking" it's quite possible your life will be destroyed. Thus the utility becomes a net negative.

I suppose you could, but it's hardly news that Saudi Arabia is deeply repressive regime.

No, but I think we should know which American company ultimately helped them.

Three years ago I got a similar call to build a user-facing knowledge graph for the region. Effectively replicating Freebase, backed by the regional telecom and the Royal Family. It was likely the same group that approached you because I was approached in precisely the same way.

good karma on you sir.

some companies/individuals would've jumped on it.

i dont know how engineers sleep at night who write spyware that track and ultimately contribute to people getting tortured to death, usually political dissidents.

also ppl designing new ways to kill humans. wtf is that shit? real contribution to humanity lol

Good to know there are folks out there doing their best to do the right thing!

CIA might thank you for sharing this with them.

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